Leon blinked, trying to reconcile what was in front of his eyes with things he knew to be true. Or perhaps things he'd simply thought he knew.
He hadn't been there, when Romulus and Estella had stumbled out of the rift the first time, but the accounts he'd heard of it described it much like this: a green light, from which emerged what seemed to be two perfectly-ordinary human beings, who'd promptly collapsed. While they remained upright now, he could understand the wonder that invariably accompanied the tellings.
This time, however, there was no figure behind them that seemed to be Andraste. Estella was simply the last one out, and behind her, the rift sealed easily, leaving nothing of itself behind save those they'd let out.
The first thing he felt was an immediate sense of relief, and then the pain of his injuries finally hit him. Carefully, he released his hold on Khari, relatively sure that the reappearance of the others would, if not dissolve her intention to kill Pike, at least quell it by distraction for now. He might have been much stronger than she was, but she was admirably tenacious, even when injured, and he couldn't keep her back forever, anyway.
If this went the way he suspected it might, he didn't really want to.
At Leon's signal, a few uninjured Inquisition soldiers relieved Romulus, Estella, and Vesryn of the other two, carrying both Ashton and Cyrus to the triage area where Zahra and a few others already lay.
Khari, for her part, stumbled forward when he let her go, looking almost dazed. Her eyes, wide and round, flickered between the three left standing; it was unclear if she registered that it was one fewer than the number should be. “You're alive." The words rasped, raw and rough, pushed out of her like a labor of hours, though they took only a moment.
"Not all of us," Vesryn managed, clutching at one of the severe wounds in his side. With his other bloody hand he pulled his helmet off. Blood had run from his lips down most of his chin and neck, and he was blinking rapidly. "We were lucky to—" Quite suddenly, his eyes rolled back into his head and his body simply went limp, causing him to collapse forward into the dirt with a loud clattering of his armor. He did not move.
Leon grimaced; they were really all in terrible shape, whatever they'd been through. He sought and found Reed with his eyes. “Let's get them all to the healers; the rest of this can come later." They could move the conversation to some section of the triage unit if they needed to, but he was first and foremost concerned with them getting the medical attention that was so desperately necessary.
Estella and Romulus at least seemed capable of moving under their own power, for the moment. The former even bent to retrieve Vesryn's helmet, tucking it under her arm and following Reed towards the cots. She smiled thinly at Khari on the way past, reaching out to brush a hand along her friend's shoulder, but she did not speak. Perhaps she could not think of anything more to say.
"We should have died," Romulus said to Khari, putting his unmarked hand fully on her shoulder. He looked perhaps the least wounded of those that had walked out of the Fade, but his injuries would still need treating, too. "Estella saved us. It's... Khari." His eyes fell to her wounds, specifically the ones left behind on her abdomen where the dragon had struck her. "You need healing."
She glanced down at herself, shaking her head slowly. “'S'fine." The response wasn't much louder than a mumble. Raising both hands, she rested them at his sides, just under his ribcage and away from his own wounds, and clenched the fabric there tightly in her fists. “Saw you fall. I thought..." Squeezing her eyes shut, she leaned forward, pressing her brow to his sternum. It wasn't a hug, maybe because they were both wounded, but she shook hard enough that even at his distance, Leon could see it. “I thought you were..."
"I'm not, Khari." His hand on her shoulder migrated around to her upper back, fingers twining with her bright red hair, and he let his chin rest on the crown of her head. "I'm alright."
They remained that way for a moment, until Romulus turned his eyes on Leon, still not really moving with Khari. "I can try to tell you what happened," he said. "Need to get her to a healer, first."
Leon nodded. “There's a free cot over here."
After getting Khari and Romulus at least seated and in line for attention from the healers, Leon took a spot across from the both of them on another. Conveniently enough, Estella was on the one to the left of his, so he didn't need to raise his voice much while they waited for the potions and medical professionals to reach them.
Shifting somewhat uncomfortably, Leon unbuckled his gauntlets, letting them drop near his feet and nudging them underneath the cot. One of them was mangled almost certainly beyond repair from its contact with dragon teeth; he'd split the skin over his knuckles down to the bone with the same blow. He kept that hand as still as possible for the moment, glancing over at the others.
“What exactly happened? We saw the bridge collapse, but not much else."
No sooner had he asked the question then Rilien appeared, bearing a satchel laden, it seemed, with potions. He handed them out wordlessly to Leon, Khari, and Romulus; it wasn't the same as having an actual healer treat them, but it would certainly help during the wait. When he came to a stop beside Estella, he fished out another, speaking too low to be heard, then took a seat next to her.
"We caught Pike on the bridge," Romulus explained, taking a drink of potion. "He killed Warden-Commander Clarel. It looked like we had him trapped, but... we were wrong. He destroyed the bridge with magic. We were falling, would've fallen all the way to the Deep Roads, but Estella..." He trailed off, looking for her to explain what had happened in that moment.
She shook her head, shifting slightly until she was at least partially leaning into Rilien. It seemed to ease some of the pain she was in. “I'm not sure what happened exactly," she confessed. “All I know is that I did something with the mark and it... opened a rift, I suppose. When I woke up, I was alone in the Fade."
“Physically?" Leon almost couldn't believe it, but simply entering the Fade in the usual sense would not have saved their lives the way this clearly had.
When she nodded, his brows furrowed. “But what then? You were gone for quite a while."
"We were in an area of the Fade controlled by a powerful Fear demon. Nightmare." The way the name slipped from Romulus's tongue seemed to give an indication of what he thought of the creature. "We were... attacked, mentally. The demon tried to turn our fears against us, in one way or another. I don't know what it tried to do to the others. But we managed to regroup at this graveyard, or at least, I saw it as a graveyard."
“So did I," Estella confirmed. “Once we were there, we..." she seemed to be struggling to figure out what words she wanted. “There was an... entity, there. One that seemed like the Divine. Her memories, or her essence, or just a spirit that took on whatever she left behind, I don't know. She gave us our memories back. It seems Nightmare had taken them from us."
“Your memories? From before the explosion at the Conclave?"
She nodded, turning her empty potion vial in her fingers. “All of them, as far as I can tell. I don't have any more gaps in my recollection, at least."
"I remembered being back in the Temple of Sacred Ashes, still a slave to Chryseis." Recalling it seem to haunt him somewhat. "I had discovered that Corypheus and a group of Grey Wardens under his control were holding the Divine, performing a ritual. I knew I couldn't stop it alone, so I went to find help. I found Estella and some of her squad." How exactly he felt about that was unclear, but there seemed to be some remorse in his words, whether it was warranted or not.
"We interrupted the ritual, and during the fight the Divine knocked that magic orb from Corypheus's hand. Estella and I, we... reached for it, at the same time. It was the orb that gave us our marks, and the orb that destroyed the Temple and killed the Divine."
“And what of the figure that others claimed to see behind you afterwards?" Leon finally managed to get the two largest plates of his armor off and away from his wounds, helped along by the fact that he could at least move his hand again after the potion. It was suddenly a great deal easier to breathe.
“The same as who we met the second time," Estella said. “Her Eminence, or some part of her. It definitely wasn't Andraste." She smiled a little wryly; Leon knew she'd never really believed it was the Bride of the Maker in the first place, but she didn't seem particularly pleased to be right. Nor displeased, for that matter. “After we touched the orb, all three of us were pulled into the Fade. She... she didn't make it out, but she helped us get there."
His uninjured hand rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “I see." He didn't find that part of it especially surprising, honestly. Without doubt, the intervention of a human or a spirit and an artifact was much easier for Leon's inherent skepticism to swallow than that of Andraste or the Maker. He doubted it would ultimately even make much difference.
"After that, we had to kill the Nightmare to make our escape." Romulus finished the last of the potion and set it aside, wiping at his lips. "The spirit of the Divine told us that the Nightmare served Corypheus, and was responsible for making the false Calling that scared the Wardens into all of this. That much should be over with now. We found Nightmare's lair... but it commanded a massive demon we couldn't hope to defeat. I think Pike was trying to have the Wardens pull it through the rift." He sighed, rubbing at his head with hands still spattered with dried blood. "Cyrus delayed the monster while we fought Nightmare. None of us were at our bests, I don't think. We killed it, but..."
“But the other demon did that to Cy." Estella sounded pained, and glanced several beds down to where the healers were still working on her brother. She was slow to move her gaze back, and when she did, she sighed heavily. “By that point, we were already in basically this shape, and it was still alive. Still coming for us. Nostariel, she—" Her voice cracked slightly.
“She stayed behind. So I'd have time to create a rift and get the rest of us through it. She saved us."
Leon frowned, then dipped his chin ponderously. “Pike has much to answer for," he said slowly. “As do the rest of the Wardens."
“Should kill the bastard." Khari, obviously referring to Pike, grumbled the words from her spot near Romulus, but they lacked quite the same panicked anger she'd had before. Given the way she was slumped partway over where she sat, that may or may not have just been the result of fatigue.
“Warden-Commander Stroud has indicated his willingness to defer to our judgement in this matter." Rilien spoke to the group for the first time since his arrival. He remained steady against Estella, allowing her to support herself on him without any apparent discomfort or protestation. “He has said that he would prefer to move the remaining members of the force here to Weisshaupt, where they might be court-martialed for their actions according to the customs of the Grey Wardens. However, if we desire some alternative action be taken, I do not think he would resist us."
Estella seemed to contemplate that for a moment. “I think we can deal with Pike later," she said, fatigue weighing down her words. “Stop me if something seems wrong with my thinking here, but the less we have to deal with the Wardens after this, the better. If Stroud thinks taking them back to Weisshaupt is the way to go, then he's probably right. Nostariel trusted him. I think that means we can, too."
Leon's lips thinned, but he suspected she was probably right. In any case, the moment word of this reached certain parties in the Orlesian government, it was bound to have an effect. Likely it would be better for everyone involved if the Wardens were already gone by then. Still... he met eyes with Romulus. “Are you of the same mind, or a different one?"
"The same," Romulus answered, almost dismissively. It was somewhat obvious that he didn't feel like dealing with the issue presently. "If they're of a mind to leave, I don't see a reason to stop them. Weisshaupt puts them far from here, and far from Corypheus."
A disturbance nearby interrupted any further talk they may have had as a panicked voice rang out above the ambient noise. "Where is she!?" Ashton's voice, clear as day, demanded. From where Leon was, he could see the guard captain shoot out of the cot he was placed in to roughly snatch an attendant by the collar and begin shaking them. "Where?!" he demanded again, anger flooding his tone.
Carefully displacing Estella, Rilien stood. The look he gave Leon was easy enough to read, and he made his way swiftly to where Ashton was. “Put him down, Ashton." His hand reached up and deftly caught Ashton's by the wrist, though he didn't appear to try and force anything, perhaps expecting that the Guard-Captain would comply on his own.
There was a moment where Ashton did nothing but glare at Rilien, every emotion he felt written out on his face. Eventually, he finally released his grip on the attendant and let him fall to the ground. He said nothing afterward, leaning forward to press his chest against his knees and cradled the back of his head with both hands. Soon after that, his shoulders began to tremble.
Rilien didn't speak again either, merely gesturing for a different person to bring him several of his potions. He moved so as to be blocking most of the area's view of Ashton, cutting him off from Leon's sight as well. It was clear enough that he'd be handling the other man's medical care himself.
Leon doubted any amount of it would do anything for the biggest wound, but that wasn't something it was within anyone else's power to fix.
“I'll tell Stroud what you've decided. Get some rest, all of you." They'd done well to so much as survive, all of them.
Even if others had not.
He hadn't been there, when Romulus and Estella had stumbled out of the rift the first time, but the accounts he'd heard of it described it much like this: a green light, from which emerged what seemed to be two perfectly-ordinary human beings, who'd promptly collapsed. While they remained upright now, he could understand the wonder that invariably accompanied the tellings.
This time, however, there was no figure behind them that seemed to be Andraste. Estella was simply the last one out, and behind her, the rift sealed easily, leaving nothing of itself behind save those they'd let out.
The first thing he felt was an immediate sense of relief, and then the pain of his injuries finally hit him. Carefully, he released his hold on Khari, relatively sure that the reappearance of the others would, if not dissolve her intention to kill Pike, at least quell it by distraction for now. He might have been much stronger than she was, but she was admirably tenacious, even when injured, and he couldn't keep her back forever, anyway.
If this went the way he suspected it might, he didn't really want to.
At Leon's signal, a few uninjured Inquisition soldiers relieved Romulus, Estella, and Vesryn of the other two, carrying both Ashton and Cyrus to the triage area where Zahra and a few others already lay.
Khari, for her part, stumbled forward when he let her go, looking almost dazed. Her eyes, wide and round, flickered between the three left standing; it was unclear if she registered that it was one fewer than the number should be. “You're alive." The words rasped, raw and rough, pushed out of her like a labor of hours, though they took only a moment.
"Not all of us," Vesryn managed, clutching at one of the severe wounds in his side. With his other bloody hand he pulled his helmet off. Blood had run from his lips down most of his chin and neck, and he was blinking rapidly. "We were lucky to—" Quite suddenly, his eyes rolled back into his head and his body simply went limp, causing him to collapse forward into the dirt with a loud clattering of his armor. He did not move.
Leon grimaced; they were really all in terrible shape, whatever they'd been through. He sought and found Reed with his eyes. “Let's get them all to the healers; the rest of this can come later." They could move the conversation to some section of the triage unit if they needed to, but he was first and foremost concerned with them getting the medical attention that was so desperately necessary.
Estella and Romulus at least seemed capable of moving under their own power, for the moment. The former even bent to retrieve Vesryn's helmet, tucking it under her arm and following Reed towards the cots. She smiled thinly at Khari on the way past, reaching out to brush a hand along her friend's shoulder, but she did not speak. Perhaps she could not think of anything more to say.
"We should have died," Romulus said to Khari, putting his unmarked hand fully on her shoulder. He looked perhaps the least wounded of those that had walked out of the Fade, but his injuries would still need treating, too. "Estella saved us. It's... Khari." His eyes fell to her wounds, specifically the ones left behind on her abdomen where the dragon had struck her. "You need healing."
She glanced down at herself, shaking her head slowly. “'S'fine." The response wasn't much louder than a mumble. Raising both hands, she rested them at his sides, just under his ribcage and away from his own wounds, and clenched the fabric there tightly in her fists. “Saw you fall. I thought..." Squeezing her eyes shut, she leaned forward, pressing her brow to his sternum. It wasn't a hug, maybe because they were both wounded, but she shook hard enough that even at his distance, Leon could see it. “I thought you were..."
"I'm not, Khari." His hand on her shoulder migrated around to her upper back, fingers twining with her bright red hair, and he let his chin rest on the crown of her head. "I'm alright."
They remained that way for a moment, until Romulus turned his eyes on Leon, still not really moving with Khari. "I can try to tell you what happened," he said. "Need to get her to a healer, first."
Leon nodded. “There's a free cot over here."
After getting Khari and Romulus at least seated and in line for attention from the healers, Leon took a spot across from the both of them on another. Conveniently enough, Estella was on the one to the left of his, so he didn't need to raise his voice much while they waited for the potions and medical professionals to reach them.
Shifting somewhat uncomfortably, Leon unbuckled his gauntlets, letting them drop near his feet and nudging them underneath the cot. One of them was mangled almost certainly beyond repair from its contact with dragon teeth; he'd split the skin over his knuckles down to the bone with the same blow. He kept that hand as still as possible for the moment, glancing over at the others.
“What exactly happened? We saw the bridge collapse, but not much else."
No sooner had he asked the question then Rilien appeared, bearing a satchel laden, it seemed, with potions. He handed them out wordlessly to Leon, Khari, and Romulus; it wasn't the same as having an actual healer treat them, but it would certainly help during the wait. When he came to a stop beside Estella, he fished out another, speaking too low to be heard, then took a seat next to her.
"We caught Pike on the bridge," Romulus explained, taking a drink of potion. "He killed Warden-Commander Clarel. It looked like we had him trapped, but... we were wrong. He destroyed the bridge with magic. We were falling, would've fallen all the way to the Deep Roads, but Estella..." He trailed off, looking for her to explain what had happened in that moment.
She shook her head, shifting slightly until she was at least partially leaning into Rilien. It seemed to ease some of the pain she was in. “I'm not sure what happened exactly," she confessed. “All I know is that I did something with the mark and it... opened a rift, I suppose. When I woke up, I was alone in the Fade."
“Physically?" Leon almost couldn't believe it, but simply entering the Fade in the usual sense would not have saved their lives the way this clearly had.
When she nodded, his brows furrowed. “But what then? You were gone for quite a while."
"We were in an area of the Fade controlled by a powerful Fear demon. Nightmare." The way the name slipped from Romulus's tongue seemed to give an indication of what he thought of the creature. "We were... attacked, mentally. The demon tried to turn our fears against us, in one way or another. I don't know what it tried to do to the others. But we managed to regroup at this graveyard, or at least, I saw it as a graveyard."
“So did I," Estella confirmed. “Once we were there, we..." she seemed to be struggling to figure out what words she wanted. “There was an... entity, there. One that seemed like the Divine. Her memories, or her essence, or just a spirit that took on whatever she left behind, I don't know. She gave us our memories back. It seems Nightmare had taken them from us."
“Your memories? From before the explosion at the Conclave?"
She nodded, turning her empty potion vial in her fingers. “All of them, as far as I can tell. I don't have any more gaps in my recollection, at least."
"I remembered being back in the Temple of Sacred Ashes, still a slave to Chryseis." Recalling it seem to haunt him somewhat. "I had discovered that Corypheus and a group of Grey Wardens under his control were holding the Divine, performing a ritual. I knew I couldn't stop it alone, so I went to find help. I found Estella and some of her squad." How exactly he felt about that was unclear, but there seemed to be some remorse in his words, whether it was warranted or not.
"We interrupted the ritual, and during the fight the Divine knocked that magic orb from Corypheus's hand. Estella and I, we... reached for it, at the same time. It was the orb that gave us our marks, and the orb that destroyed the Temple and killed the Divine."
“And what of the figure that others claimed to see behind you afterwards?" Leon finally managed to get the two largest plates of his armor off and away from his wounds, helped along by the fact that he could at least move his hand again after the potion. It was suddenly a great deal easier to breathe.
“The same as who we met the second time," Estella said. “Her Eminence, or some part of her. It definitely wasn't Andraste." She smiled a little wryly; Leon knew she'd never really believed it was the Bride of the Maker in the first place, but she didn't seem particularly pleased to be right. Nor displeased, for that matter. “After we touched the orb, all three of us were pulled into the Fade. She... she didn't make it out, but she helped us get there."
His uninjured hand rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “I see." He didn't find that part of it especially surprising, honestly. Without doubt, the intervention of a human or a spirit and an artifact was much easier for Leon's inherent skepticism to swallow than that of Andraste or the Maker. He doubted it would ultimately even make much difference.
"After that, we had to kill the Nightmare to make our escape." Romulus finished the last of the potion and set it aside, wiping at his lips. "The spirit of the Divine told us that the Nightmare served Corypheus, and was responsible for making the false Calling that scared the Wardens into all of this. That much should be over with now. We found Nightmare's lair... but it commanded a massive demon we couldn't hope to defeat. I think Pike was trying to have the Wardens pull it through the rift." He sighed, rubbing at his head with hands still spattered with dried blood. "Cyrus delayed the monster while we fought Nightmare. None of us were at our bests, I don't think. We killed it, but..."
“But the other demon did that to Cy." Estella sounded pained, and glanced several beds down to where the healers were still working on her brother. She was slow to move her gaze back, and when she did, she sighed heavily. “By that point, we were already in basically this shape, and it was still alive. Still coming for us. Nostariel, she—" Her voice cracked slightly.
“She stayed behind. So I'd have time to create a rift and get the rest of us through it. She saved us."
Leon frowned, then dipped his chin ponderously. “Pike has much to answer for," he said slowly. “As do the rest of the Wardens."
“Should kill the bastard." Khari, obviously referring to Pike, grumbled the words from her spot near Romulus, but they lacked quite the same panicked anger she'd had before. Given the way she was slumped partway over where she sat, that may or may not have just been the result of fatigue.
“Warden-Commander Stroud has indicated his willingness to defer to our judgement in this matter." Rilien spoke to the group for the first time since his arrival. He remained steady against Estella, allowing her to support herself on him without any apparent discomfort or protestation. “He has said that he would prefer to move the remaining members of the force here to Weisshaupt, where they might be court-martialed for their actions according to the customs of the Grey Wardens. However, if we desire some alternative action be taken, I do not think he would resist us."
Estella seemed to contemplate that for a moment. “I think we can deal with Pike later," she said, fatigue weighing down her words. “Stop me if something seems wrong with my thinking here, but the less we have to deal with the Wardens after this, the better. If Stroud thinks taking them back to Weisshaupt is the way to go, then he's probably right. Nostariel trusted him. I think that means we can, too."
Leon's lips thinned, but he suspected she was probably right. In any case, the moment word of this reached certain parties in the Orlesian government, it was bound to have an effect. Likely it would be better for everyone involved if the Wardens were already gone by then. Still... he met eyes with Romulus. “Are you of the same mind, or a different one?"
"The same," Romulus answered, almost dismissively. It was somewhat obvious that he didn't feel like dealing with the issue presently. "If they're of a mind to leave, I don't see a reason to stop them. Weisshaupt puts them far from here, and far from Corypheus."
A disturbance nearby interrupted any further talk they may have had as a panicked voice rang out above the ambient noise. "Where is she!?" Ashton's voice, clear as day, demanded. From where Leon was, he could see the guard captain shoot out of the cot he was placed in to roughly snatch an attendant by the collar and begin shaking them. "Where?!" he demanded again, anger flooding his tone.
Carefully displacing Estella, Rilien stood. The look he gave Leon was easy enough to read, and he made his way swiftly to where Ashton was. “Put him down, Ashton." His hand reached up and deftly caught Ashton's by the wrist, though he didn't appear to try and force anything, perhaps expecting that the Guard-Captain would comply on his own.
There was a moment where Ashton did nothing but glare at Rilien, every emotion he felt written out on his face. Eventually, he finally released his grip on the attendant and let him fall to the ground. He said nothing afterward, leaning forward to press his chest against his knees and cradled the back of his head with both hands. Soon after that, his shoulders began to tremble.
Rilien didn't speak again either, merely gesturing for a different person to bring him several of his potions. He moved so as to be blocking most of the area's view of Ashton, cutting him off from Leon's sight as well. It was clear enough that he'd be handling the other man's medical care himself.
Leon doubted any amount of it would do anything for the biggest wound, but that wasn't something it was within anyone else's power to fix.
“I'll tell Stroud what you've decided. Get some rest, all of you." They'd done well to so much as survive, all of them.
Even if others had not.